IN BRET HARTE'S COUNTRY. 285 



if she doesn't she doesn't. Were she to hear some of the 

 insipid, insincere, snobbish, English aping- gush of her 

 Eastern sisters somethink like this: "Aw, my deah, deah 

 Miss Mushroom, very, very delighted, awfully charmed, 

 I assure you doncherknow" — she'd think it was Greek; 

 or that the speaker was a freak fresh from some dime 

 museum. If she knew the real depth of deceit covered 

 by this imbecile tissue of exaggerated English affection, 

 she'd feel like turning the hose, filled with alkali water 

 of Bitter Creek, on her. Then when she meets a friend 

 and kisses her — I didn't see an illustration of the opera- 

 tion on a subject of the opposite sex — she kisses; no 

 crosslot kiss or canary bird peck, do-it-quick-and-get- 

 away-from-me-variety, but a good, genuine sincere old 

 North American unaffected delicious lingering kiss — my 

 but how a fellow hankers for one himself. And it is 

 beautiful to see the chivalrous respect accorded her by the 

 sterner sex of all degrees, from the millionaire mine own- 

 er or cattle-man to the cow-bov herder. 



There is no money worth talking about to be made by 

 either the horse owner or the track owner in harness 

 racing. An expensive plant has to be maintained gener- 

 ally three hundred and sixty days in unprofitable idleness, 

 to be ready for use the other five days of the year. Under 

 such conditions no association can hold its own and scale 

 down its entrance fees to anything like the standard in 

 vogue on the running turf. Six and a quarter per cent, 

 looks to be exorbitant when you are making an entry, but 

 it isn't half so big when you are running the meeting. 



